More and more people are searching the internet visually using Google’s image search feature.  And this makes send.  Think about it.  If you’re looking for a product that’s of a particular look and color, it’s much faster to scroll though a grid of images than to click on individual links in a list, only to have to click back if you don’t find what you want.  Because of this trend, it’s important to make sure all of the images on your website show up in image search.  Luckily, it’s easy!

All you really have to do is make sure all of the images on your site are named with keywords that your customers are likely to search with.  Go to your site right now and choose an image.  Right click on it to view the image properties.  If the name of the image is something like “larger_picture_6574.jpg”, that’s a problem.  Consider renaming that image to have a search term.  For example, if you sell iPhone cases, rename the image with the product name.  “black_otterbox_case_iphone” will show up in image search results.  “larger_picture_6574.jpg” won’t.  It’s really that simple.

To get some ideas on how to rename your photos, go to Google and do a few image searches for products you’re interested in.  Pay close attention to the ones that came up first.  Were they what you were looking for?  How were they named?  As people use the internet more and more visually, being optimized for Google image search is increasingly important to your business’ visibility.

Many small businesses think that doing online advertising campaigns such as Google Adwords is beyond their budget because there is already too much competition for their desired keywords.  To an extent, this is true.  If you’ve got larger competitors with big budgets, chances are you won’t be able to get the most popular keywords.  However, that doesn’t mean that online advertising is cost prohibitive.  In fact, there is a keyword strategy that small businesses can use to get in the online advertising game—even on a small budget!

It’s called “chasing the long tail” and here’s how it works.  Let’s say your business sells wrenches.  The most obvious keyword that might come to mind is “wrench”.  But chances are, there are already thousands of bigger companies that are paying premium cost per click (CPC) for that keyword.  If the keyword “wrench” has a CPC of $20, you might burn up your entire daily budget in 10 minutes leaving you with only one or two clicks per day.  That’s not a very effective use of your campaign budget.  But instead, what if you used more specific keywords such as “metric combination wrench set”, “titanium-coated monkey wrench”, or “8” alloy steel adjustable wrench”.  Those more specific key words are probably less competitive and might have a CPC of $0.50 rather than $20.  These are called “long tail” keywords because if you looked at a graph showing the number of times they are searched, they would be down low, at the “tail” of the curve.  But just because they’re not searched as often doesn’t mean they’re not effective.

By focusing on long tail keywords, you can get more clicks by having a great diversity of less expensive keywords.  It will take more time to build your keyword list but programs like Google’s Keyword tool can make it more manageable.  When doing your research, focus on keywords that are relatively inexpensive that get at least 1,000 global searches per month.

Another reason why the long tail makes sense is that when people actually search, they tend to be specific.  Think about it—if you’re looking for a ½” drive torque wrench, are you going to type “wrench” in the search bar?  Having more specific keywords also drives more relevant traffic to your site.

So even if you’ve got a small budget, try experimenting with long tail keywords for 3 months or so.  You might be surprised at how much you can do with even a small investment.

Probably not.  The page is too busy with too many choices.  It takes too much time to figure out what to click on to get the content you want.  It’s like trying to navigate using a compass needle that’s spinning out of control.  Now, take a look at Verizon’s home page:

If you landed on this page, how long would it take you to figure out what to click first?  With 3 prominent calls to action, it’s pretty clear what to click on and get you to where you want to go.  This site is an excellent example of how to funnel your visitors to the most relevant content with the least amount of effort.

Here’s a great experiment.  Find someone who knows little or nothing about your product or service and give them a task.  Ask them to go to your home page and give them a specific piece of information to find.  Then, time how long it takes them to find it and make note of any navigational errors they made.  Did they click on an irrelevant banner to try to get the information they wanted?  Why did they think that was the correct path?  What mislead them?  How many clicks did it take for them to finally find the assigned information?  Was it intuitive or did they get frustrated?  These are all questions you should ask yourself during the experiment.

Think of your home page as a map—it’s very often a potential customer’s starting point on their journey toward conversion.  If it’s clear and concise, your visitors will know exactly where to go—increasing the likelihood of converting.  If it’s confusing, your visitors will become lost (along with your shot at winning them over).  If customers can’t find the information they want, how can they ever know that what you have is what they need?  What can you do today to make it as easy as possible for your customers to get to the right content from your home page?

press release tips

Press releases are not only a great way to increase your brand awareness, but are also powerful SEO tools that can increase traffic to your site and your overall number of inbound links.  Unfortunately, many people just post their press releases on the “news” section of their website and don’t take full advantage all the SEO benefits proper distribution can bring.  In order to get the most out of your press release, follow the step-by-step approach below:

1. Do post on your website, but in a blog format. Many companies just post their PRs on a static page but it’s better to set up a category on your blog called “Press Releases” or “Company News”.  The reason for this is that if it’s in a blog format, you can submit your RSS feed to syndication sites and this will dramatically increase your distribution.  Every time you post a new press release, the RSS feed will send it to all of the syndication sites you’ve submitted it to.  In turn, other sites that publish those feeds will pick up your PR and publish it, exponentially increasing your exposure.  Of course, for this to work, you first have to have submitted your RSS feed to several sites.  Here is a list of some sites where you can submit your feed. All you have to do is enter your feed URL.  Not sure what the URL for your feed is?  It’s usually something like “http://www.YourCompanyDomain.com/feed”.  But if you’re not sure, check with your webmaster.
2. After it’s posted on your website, post a link to it on all of your social media sites:  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc. This will not only give your followers a heads up, but will give you more inbound links every time you do a press release.  Tip:  When you post a bulletin on your Youtube channel, put the URL first, then a brief description of the release.  This way, your link appears first and won’t get buried in the truncated bulletin preview.
3. Next, distribute your PR on several PR distribution sites. This will give you the most exposure as many other websites publish feeds from PR sites (again, exponential exposure).  Some are free, some are paid.  The main difference is usually the level of distribution and access to different features.  For example, on some free PR sites, you can’t put clickable links in your PR.  Ideally, you want to have clickable links to make it as easy as possible for readers to get to your website.  Two free PR sites that allow clickable links are PRLog.org and Mediasyndicate.com.  Depending on your budget you will even be able to add images or attach documents on paid sites.  If you’re new to press releases, start by posting on as many sites as you can.  Then, (assuming you have links in your PRs), monitor your Google Analytics to see which ones are performing best.  You might start by posting on 12-15 sites but pare it down over time if you see that only 6 are really getting you traffic.  So, it will be more work at first, but you’ll eventually be able to streamline it.

If you follow the process above every time you write a press release, you’ll get more inbound links, more traffic, and, ultimately, the most exposure for your buck.

Think about the last time you read a newspaper (a real one or a virtual one—it doesn’t matter if it was an actual paper one, on your iPhone, or on your Kindle).  How did you decide which articles to skip and which ones to read?  Chances are, you scanned through the headlines first, then maybe read the bylines or checked out the photos before committing to a particular article.  Well, here’s a little secret:  search engines read your website the same way you read a newspaper!

Understanding that concept gives you a remarkably easy way to optimize your website much faster than other SEO strategies that can take months or years such as link building or producing content.  Here are three things you can do in probably a few minutes that will instantly improve your on-page SEO.

1.  Check your page titles. Go to your website home page.  Now, look in the top bar of your browser window to see the page title.  If it says something like “Your Company Name | Home”, you are not optimized and it’s hurting your search results.  Page titles are your “newspaper headlines” and are one of the first things a search engine reads before deciding to recommend your site or not.  Every page on your website should have a page title that contains keywords that are relevant to that page and that potential customers actually search for. Many companies make the mistake of putting their company name first, then the page title.  This is wrong.  Put the keyword-rich page title first, THEN your company name.  So, for example, if your company specializes in left-handed scissors, your home page title should be something like “Left Handed Scissors | Lefty’s, Inc.” rather than “Lefty’s | Home”.

2.  Check your headers. H1, H2, and H3 headers are also one of the first thing a search engine uses to determine the relevance of your page to a searcher (just like bylines in a newspaper).  They are given more weight than the actual copy of the page and give the search engine more information on what you page is about.  Ideally, your headers will have synergy with your page titles.  So, if your page title is “Left Handed Scissors”, an H1 heading like “Left Handed Scissors for Children” will give the search engine more confidence that it’s found the right page when someone types in those keywords.

3.  Check your images. While search engines can’t actually “see” pictures on your website, they so take into account the names of the pictures and their ALT text (that little pop up that appears when you scroll over an image on a website).  Far too often, websites have image names or ALT text that is something like “005674.JPEG”.  This tells the search engines nothing.  Instead, you should rename all of the images on your site to include keywords.  This is especially relevant today as more and more people are using Google image search to find what they want instead of the regular SERP.

Imagine how powerful combining the three tips above could be for your SEO on just one page:

Page Title: Left Handed Scissors | Lefty’s, Inc.

H1: Left Handed Scissors for Children

Image Name & ALT text: Children’s Left Handed Scissors

By just tweaking 3 things on that one page, it’s instantly optimized.  So if you want better organic ranking, transform your website into the New York Times rather than a novel.  The search engines open it up every day with their morning coffee.  Make it easy for them to choose your headline over your competitors!

Does your contact page look like a tax form?

Your SEO and Google Adwords are getting traffic to your site.  You’ve got calls to action all over the place to take people to your conversion forms.   Your traffic is even up from last month.  So, how come no one is filling out your forms?  It could be that they need a makeover.

It’s hard enough just to get someone to your form.  Once there, it’s a make or break situation.  Don’t sabotage your own conversions and waste all of the hard work you’ve done to get them there.  Avoid these 4 common mistakes to get more conversions on your forms:

1.  Too Many Fields. If your “Contact Us” page looks like a tax form, you’re probably not going to get many people filling it out.  Sure, you want as much information as possible but the initial moment someone is on your contact page is NOT the right time or place to get it.  In fact, it’s all too common that web forms ask for too much information and scare people away.  And what’s worse is that, in many cases, no one is even doing anything with that information. Think about the information you really need in order to follow up with someone and start the lead nurturing process.  Convincing someone to fill out a form is tenuous.  You don’t want to give them even the smallest reason to back out.  Make it as painless as possible for them.  Studies have shown that the fewer fields you have on a form, the more likely it is to convert.  In most cases, you can probably get by with just name and email.  Remember, you can always gather more information later when you follow up.

2.  Too Many Required fields. The less people are required to do, the more likely it is that they will complete a form.  Try to keep it to between two and four fields, max.  If you absolutely have to more than that, only make the ones that are most important required (contact information like name and email).  Don’t risk losing a lead because you’re requiring them to fill in a comments box when they don’t want to.  If you have too many required fields, you’re more likely to get gibberish than information of value anyway.

3.  Lack of Incentive. “Contact Us” is not a very enticing call to action.  Instead, consider giving something away in exchange for a lead’s valuable contact info.  Think of it more as a trade than a one-way conversation.  Why not incentivize visitors to fill out a form by giving them something for free?  This could be a coupon, a free demo, an e-book, a free trial, a free webinar, etc.  Think of what collateral you already have that wouldn’t cost you much to give away but would be of enough value to someone to give up their contact info.

4.  Too Much Manual Labor. Go to your web form right now and fill it out.  How long did it take you?  Did you have to type a novella to complete it or was it a relatively painless process?  If you had to do a lot more typing than clicking, you might want to re-evaluate the types of fields you have.  For example, instead of a text field, could you make a picklist that makes it easier to answer a question?  Could certain fields be pre-populated to reduce the amount that a visitor has to type in (e.g. prepopulate a URL field with “www.”).  If you didn’t have a pleasant experience filling out your own form, your visitors won’t either (or worse, they won’t fill it out at all).  Consider how you could change your field types to streamline the process.  Again, the less a prospective lead has to do, the more likely they are to actually do it.

Think of the types of forms you are willing to fill out and the ones that just appall you.  Your customers probably feel the same way.  A good form is designed to convert—not to be an information gathering juggernaut.  Take a look at your forms and ask yourself what information you could live without if started getting you more leads tomorrow.  Think about it—would you rather have more leads or more detailed information in your database?  Get the leads now, fill in the blanks later.

So, you’ve just Googled a keyword and, lo and behold, your site came up #1 in organic results!  It seems too good to be true.  And, it probably is.  Chances are, Google’s personalized search is playing tricks on you.

You probably visit your own website several times a week (if not per day) and Google records this.  So, in order to serve up more relevant results, Google will rank sites higher that you’ve visited more often.  While you may see your site in the #1 position for a certain keyword, someone who has never been to your site (or has ever searched within your industry for that matter) might not see your site until page 7.  In essence, your search is biased and you’re not seeing your true ranking the way your potential customers do.  So, how can you check your true organic ranking?

The simple way is to simple sign out of Google.  This might be a hassle though if you want to keep your Gmail or Google Docs open.  An easy alternative that will let you stay signed in to Google and still test your keywords objectively is to turn off Google search history personalization.

Try this as an experiment:  Pick a keyword you think you rank well for (on page one let’s say) and search it.  Note the position where your site appears.  Now, turn off your search history and do the same search.  Are you in the same place?  If so, congratulations!  If not, don’t despair.  It just means you have some work to do.  But at least now, you know exactly where you really stand with Google.  And having that knowledge will allow you to truly improve your ranking (instead of just believing it’s good).

http://www.vambry.com/?p=423

Just in time for Christmas, Google recently announced a change to its algorithm that will be a shiny new bicycle under the tree for businesses with good customer service and a lump of coal for scam artists and shysters.

It was all prompted by a New York Times article about a company that was getting a lot of negative reviews online yet was actually being helped by them in search results, getting more and more traffic to their site with every bad comment.  Why?  Because until December, the search engine could not determine if a link was posted with a positive or negative sentiment.  All links were treated as votes of authority to a site (as you might know, the more backlinks you have to your site, the better it is for you ranking).  So, if you had 1,000 links to your site complaining about your services and only 50 praising them, Google essentially thought you had 1,050 backlinks in your favor and would promote your ranking in search results as such.  Not anymore.

In an ever-increasing effort to improve search results, Google now takes sentiment into account.  So from now on, those 1,000 links describing a company’s services as “terrible”, “awful”, or “pathetic” will no longer help boost their organic ranking.  Win one for the good guys!

So, what does this mean for your business?  While good content and SEO are still critical in order to get traffic and rank well, you can’t ignore good, old-fashioned customer service.  Remember high school?  Remember how a rumor written on a bathroom wall or gossip in the locker room could instantly turn someone into a pariah?  Well, this is high school all over again.  Only this time, instead of an uncomfortable period you’ll eventually move on from, it can cost you serious money and permanently damage your company’s reputation.

The internet has millions of “bathroom walls” and even a couple of bad customer experiences can directly affect your business.  Things posted on the internet don’t go away.  There’s no high school janitor to wash them off.  Google is playing hall monitor but you still have to be “good” to preserve your rep.

Here’s the takeaway:  actually deliver the good customer service you promise in your online content and marketing collateral–you will be rewarded with good traffic and sales rather than a lump of coal.  Your reputation matters more than ever before. Make sure everyone in your organization knows that.  Tell them to treat every call, every email as if they’re responding to someone holding a Sharpie marker with the cap off in their hand and heading for the nearest restroom (because they are).

We spend a lot of time thinking about ways to get people to our sites.  But are we spending enough time thinking about what happens once they get there?  As I wrote in a previous post, traffic alone does not equate to sales.  We want our visitors to do something once they land on our home page and the only way to do that is with a strong call to action.  A simple “contact us” link in the navigation bar doesn’t cut it anymore.   We need to create calls to action that are compelling, obvious, and user friendly.  Here are some tips to create effective calls to action that will increase conversion on the traffic you’re already getting.

1.  Determine goals. First, you need to decide what you want the result of the call to action to be.  Do you want people to join your site, sign up for a newsletter, request a quote, register for a webinar, start a free trial?

2.  Make use of prime real estate. You might come up with several calls to action so it’s important to prioritize them.  The most important one should be given the most prominent space on your home page.  Consider the size as well.  A large, graphical call to action will likely get you more leads than a large block of text.

3.  Keep it simple. No one wants to fill out a long inquiry form or go through 15 steps to sign up for a newsletter.  Make it as easy as possible for people—even as simple as just asking for their name and email (maybe leave an optional comments box).  The easier you make it, the more results you’ll get.

4.  Use action words. Remember that you want to motivate someone to complete an action and your language should reflect that:

• Register Now
• Get Our Newsletter
• Sign Up for the webinar
• Choose a Product
• Start your Free Trial Today

5.  Limit choices. 10 different calls to action on your home page doesn’t mean you’ll get 10 times more leads.  Too many choices can lead to indecision.  Keep the most important ones on the home page and consider putting less important ones on interior pages.

Think of the last time you subscribed to a site or signed up for a free trial.  What made you do it?  What was it about their call to action that motivated you to take the next step?